Wow, I guess it's time for my first blog entry. Where to begin..Well to start, I'm writing this on the top floor of the Bike House in Silver City, New Mexico. It's a pretty crazy place filled with giant paper mache creations (Jamie the owner is a puppet as well as cycling enthusiast), bikes of all shapes and sizes, and a mixture of people from all over the country that have fell in love with the community here. I discovered this place by accident on my last tour and thought it might be worth checking out this time around. Sure enough, we had barely gotten off our bikes outside when a friendly guy named Mike invited us to stay for the night. Anyways, let's rewind a few days to the start of this trip. After saying goodbye to the mommas, we took off in a rental car packed with our dissected bikes and gear. In Atlanta, Christy and Simon Malko gave us a warm welcome and two amazingly comfortable beds to sleep in. They even sent us off in the morning with two grocery bags full of food (which we did a number on in the following days). In Houston, a hotel served our needs and in Austin a great guy named Leslie let us stay in his guest house. I know you're probably getting bored and ready to hear about bears and wolves chasing us through the wilderness, but don't worry, I'm sure there will be lots of that later. After what seemed like an infinite amount of driving through the nothingness which west Texas is comprised of, we finally made it to El Paso. That night we stayed with Ryan Wohlers who I found through couchsurfing.org (a great website for anyone who likes to travel). Ryan is an army Apache helicopter pilot and has traveled all across the world. He told us about his traveling experiences, showed us the ins and outs of the town, and took care of us in every way imaginable. In just a few hours in El Paso we got to take pictures at a lookout and see the whole city (including Juarez, Mexico), eat at an delicious and cheap Mexican restaurant and hangout in a hanger with Army's Apache helicopters. The next day we assembled our bikes, said our goodbyes, and hit the road. We were barely 30 minutes out of El Paso when I felt the air draining out of my back tire. With a loud "urghhhhhhhhhhh" I pulled over and checked the damages. Turns out I had managed to get thorns in both of my tires simultaneously. This has got to be a world record or something. After patching the holes we got back on the road and pedaled along past rows upon rows of pecan trees. It wasn't long however, before I felt that familiar feeling and looked down to see my back tire flat once again. Hours and hours passed with tire difficulties and by the time we pulled into Mesilla NM, my arms were more tired than my legs from so much time pumping up my tires. I was pretty exhausted and ready to find somewhere to crash. On my last tour of the southern tier (bikeforafrica.org) I found out that fire stations are often times great places to camp and so I suggested that we check on out in Mesilla. Sure enough, when we arrived I realized it was the same one I stayed at last time. After a few phone calls, we got permission to camp out back by a park and began to set up our tents. That night I had protein bars, nuts, and rice cakes for dinner and mid meal it occurred to me that it was my birthday and that ordinary people would be eating real food and cake on their birthdays. It also occurred to me that this was way better. The next day we tried to stop at a bike shop on the way out of town but it was closed. I was feeling kind of disappointed in myself for making an insanely extensive packing list and forgetting entirely about tire liners or some sort of protection from the thorns in New Mexico. We ran into some really intense headwind that day that pretty much reduced our speed by half. I didn't eat a big enough breakfast that morning and was really struggling to keep going. After a quick snack in Hatch, NM at a restaurant that specializes in putting green chile in just about everything you can imagine (smoothies, burgers, shakes, sauces), we set out for a campsite down the road. By the time we arrived in Avery at an RV Park it was sunset and we were starving. The friendly owner invited us in and said we were welcome to eat as much as we wanted from the leftovers of a cookout they had earlier. That was just what I wanted to hear. The pasta and potato salad plus cake that I ate that night and the following morning must have totaled somewhere around 8,000 calories. Josh had a lot too but I think I was behind him and hadn't been eating enough the past few days. The next day we set out to climb Emory Pass which is the hardest climb you encounter on the Southern Tier Route (FL to CA) and one of the steepest hills we'll have to deal with until Colorado. 17 miles, and 1000 feet of climbing brought us to a quaint little town called Hillsboro where we filled up on water and met some locals who told us about the history of the place. We even passed a couple touring cyclists but they seemed too tired to really want to chat. The next 9 miles we climbed another 1,000 feet to Kingston and the remaining 8 miles were pretty much straight up into the sky and with 2,000 feet of elevation gain. By the time I got to the top Josh had beaten me up there and was basking in the glory of reaching 8200 feet. We decided to celebrate by eating some macaroni which we discovered in Hatch can be cooked by simply soaking in hot water for an extended period of time. Lacking hot water we figured it might work just by soaking the noodles in warm water. I offered up my water bottle as the container which this experiment would take place in and we mixed the ingredients. A few minutes passed and it was time to dine. I took a few bites of the noodles and gave up because it was one of the foulest concoctions my poor tongue had ever encountered. However, Josh was persistent and somehow made it through the rest of the "food". Turns out, the issue was that I had never washed out our water bag and some of the lining had mixed in with the water and added an overpowering chemically flavor. I won't elaborate too much on the internal outcome of this food experiment but I will say that I did not enjoy being downwind from Josh for the remainder of the day. Besides a couple uphills that really pissed us off, we had a relaxing couple of hours of downhill riding into San Lorenzo. That night we camped at another RV park and ate gas station food for dinner. The next day we rode the remaining 22 miles into Silver City and I got another flat tire along the way bringing my total to somewhere around 7 or 8. After a nice day filled with eating and lounging at the library, we ended up at the Bike House that I mentioned earlier. Tomorrow our real journey begins as we start the Great Divide Route. By starting in El Paso, TX instead of Antelope Wells NM where the trail technically begins, we've actually added quite a few miles to the journey and a bit of climbing. The next real town we're going to pass through is called Pie Town and it is about 160 miles away from here. We're going to have to carry 3-4 days of food with us and enough water to make it 40-60 mile stretches at a time. I'm a little nervous right now about that much time in the wilderness but I think we'll be fine. I'm sure once we get out there it won't seem half as scary as it does now. It's crazy how much money we've raised so far for RSD and how much support people are giving us. It really inspires me to keep riding when I look at the Facebook page and see so many encouraging comments. We couldn't do it without you guys. I've also had a lot of time to sit and think on a bike and it really puts my butt soreness in perspective when you realize how many people are suffering from chronic pain 24-7. I'm sure this blog entry is long, boring, and filled with dozens of grammatical errors but oh well, grammar was never really my thing. I probably won't be able to blog for another week so adios till then! -Gabe

glad to hear u boys are fairing well,incase i dont ring a bell i'm the autozoner that tryed to get you both back on the road,and had lent you tools and even had you come by my place to see iff I could help out to some extent. met up with you the next day at the park in grants, and you guys had it handled quit nicely. Thanks for leaving the extra items.

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Gabe Smiley is the co-founder and cyclist for Ride for RSD. He is from Chapel Hill, NC and goes to school at UNCA.